TIMMINS - “There’s a black cloud hanging over the city of Timmins” after the deaths of two people from Fort Albany First Nation over the weekend.

That’s according to Jonathon Solomon, Grand Chief of Mushkegowuk Council, who was speaking at an emergency summit on illegal drugs and alcohol Tuesday morning.

“Keep the families in your thoughts and prayers. (They) are going through such difficult times with the two losses we had over the weekend,” he said.

When speaking with Postmedia in between presentations, Solomon said he wanted to keep the focus on the summit itself.

He did acknowledge the people he represents are “concerned what’s going to happen if they come in contact with police. There’s also a lot of anger and a lot of questions in regards to the whole situation.”

This province’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) is looking into both incidents.

In the first, Joey Knapaysweet, 21, was struck after “one of the officers discharged a firearm” during an incident at Gillies Lake Saturday morning.

In the second, Agnes Sutherland died in hospital after spending time in police custody on Saturday. An SIU release states the 62-year-old was originally asked to leave the hospital at 2:45 p.m. She was later arrested at a shelter and brought to a cell at the police station.

At 10 p.m., an ambulance was called and she was taken to hospital, according to the SIU.

The Timmins Police Service has declined to provide additional details about the incident during the SIU’s investigation. Neither is the SIU, which will eventually release reports about the findings of both investigations.

Glen Sutherland, Agnes Sutherland’s son, expects to use some of those services when he returns home.

Ceremonies are “the reason why we’re strong today.”

He said the family is planning a funeral for the 62-year-old woman in her home of Fort Albany. Glen Sutherland has requested an autopsy for his mom, and is also looking at hiring a lawyer.

Sutherland spent some time with his mother before she died in hospital Sunday night.

“She could hardly look at us. She could barely open her eyes. She looked exhausted, pretty much. I had never seen my mom like that before,” he said.

Sutherland said his mother wanted to return to Fort Albany “to die.”

He said he’s frustrated doctors allowed a “mentally unstable” woman to make choices about her health without consulting family first. His mother reportedly denied dialysis treatments over the weekend.

“She was tired of being on the machine,” he said.

Sutherland said his mother was wheelchair-bound and had been living in Timmins since her kidneys failed five years ago. He said his mother suffered from mental illness and undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder as a survivor of St. Anne’s residential school.

“We’ve been trying to get her help by a psychiatrist,” said Sutherland. “I was hoping to help her with her mental state, but they keep telling me, we can’t help her if she doesn’t want to help herself.”

Sutherland said his mother’s frequent trips to the emergency room were a “cry for help.”

He said he doesn’t understand why doctors and police officers, who knew his mother by name, weren’t able to see the signs and get her help.

“I don’t know how to feel right now, with how they treated my mother. She was a sick woman.

“We just didn’t know what to do, how to help our mom. We tried the best we can, whatever we knew how.”